by Ron McLinden
Ozark Chapter Transportation Chair
Education and prescription drugs for seniors might be getting most of the attention this political season, but a projected $30 billion shortfall in transportation funding over the next 20 years promises to eclipse them as Missouri’s Number One issue.
The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) released its draft Long–Range Transportation Plan in September and the bottom–line numbers are sobering. The cost of meeting the state’s transportation needs – for all modes, including transit and rail — will be approximately $52 billion over the next 20 years. It’s anticipated that available funds, including federal funds, will total only $22 billion. That leaves a whopping $30 billion that is needed – about $1.5 billion per year.
As expected, the lion’s share of the need is for highways and bridges: nearly $42 billion. The plan divides this between preservation needs ($22 billion) and expansion needs ($20 billion). “Preservation” includes “rehabilitation and reconstruction” work that must be done to keep the state’s 32,000 miles of roads in operating condition, and to bring them up to acceptable standards. “Expansion” includes essentially all of the projects in the failed “fifteen year plan” of 1992 – those four–lane highways to every town of 5,000 or more.
Public transit needs are estimated at $8.5 billion, while the inter–city passenger rail and bus service need is estimated at $0.4 to $2.6 billion, depending on whether a full–blown high–speed rail system is implemented. No estimate is given for bike and pedestrian needs – in part because these needs are often considered incidental to highway construction projects, and in part because MoDOT simply doesn’t have a handle on the extent of those needs.
If we take these estimates at face value – and we should not do that, of course — the question becomes how to raise the money. The two most obvious sources are the gas tax and the general sales tax. Based on MoDOT’s estimates of revenue per penny of tax, it would take a gasoline tax increase of about 50 cents per gallon, or a sales tax increase of 3 cents, to raise $1.5 billion per year. Either way the increase would have to go to the voters for approval.
The Plan, As a Plan
Overall, the plan is getting favorable reviews for being at least a good start on addressing transportation needs. Significantly, the plan proposes guidelines for how to prioritize future spending for highways, while avoiding the trap of identifying specific projects. That will be done year by year as MoDOT updates its five–year spending plan. Of greatest significance, perhaps, is that it identifies safety and preservation of the existing system as highest priority. Even those needs, however, exceed available funding.
The plan also has its shortcomings. MoDOT recognizes this, and characterizes the plan as a work in progress. Based on our quick review, here are some of its deficiencies:
- The plan takes transportation pretty much for granted, without stepping back to consider where it fits in a broader context. It focuses on transportation investment “inputs” more than on “outputs” or benefits to society.
- The plan appears to assume that MoDOT will continue to do pretty much what it already does, albeit with some expansion in transit and inter–city passenger transportation.
- The plan gives inadequate attention to safety. Building roads to be safer is considered, of course, but there’s little or no mention of the role of driver behavior and traffic law enforcement in saving lives and avoiding injuries.
- The plan gives little consideration to urban growth policies and their impact on transportation expansion needs.
- The plan offers no policy alternatives. What might be the costs and benefits of shifting, say, $5 billion from highways to transit? You won’t find the answer in this document – nor even the question.
Multi–Faceted Approach Needed
The size of the funding shortfall is so enormous that a single–tax solution is not likely. Meeting the identified needs is going to require a comprehensive and multi–faceted approach to transportation. That approach must include the following principles at minimum:
- Trim highway expansion expectations. Some of the projects desired by for economic development and other purposes are going to have to be dropped or at least postponed.
- Increase funding for transit over and above the needs identified, as a matter of policy, to make up for past decades of neglect.
- Require greater local funding for projects that are primarily for local benefit. For example, local jurisdictions should bear more of the cost of widening state highways to ease congestion along local commercial strips.
- Promote better local land development practices to help reduce local traffic – provide more “access” through proximity and less through mobility.
- Raise user fees – the motor fuel tax, vehicle sales taxes, and vehicle registration fees to levels at least as high as surrounding states.
- Increase user fees on trucks – perhaps through a “weight–distance tax” — to assure that they pay more of the cost of the damage they do to highways. The trucking industry will protest that such fees will just be passed along to product consumers — and that’s the way it should be.
- Increase the general sales tax only after user fees have been raised to the highest level tolerable.
- Use congestion pricing – or “time–of–day” tolls – on urban freeways to shift trips to alternate routes or off–peak time periods, and thereby reduce or postpone the need for added capacity.
- Implement tolls on new or expanded interstate highways.
- Create interstate highway corridor benefit districts within which a tax surcharge would be levied on all businesses that depend on highway traffic – gas stations, motels, restaurants, and outdoor advertising.
The Political Angle
Funding transportation needs is going to require leadership from our next governor. Curiously, credible leadership is not yet apparent. One candidate adheres rigidly to the “fifteen–year plan” of 1992, and insists he can have all those projects under construction by 2011 without an increase in taxes. The other candidate says, “No, that won’t work” – but he doesn’t say what he would do. Obviously neither candidate wants to say he’ll raise taxes for transportation. But one has promised that he won’t raise taxes – in spite of the fact that the 6–cent gas tax increase enacted in 1992 will expire in 2008.
Meanwhile, a new organization called “Transport Missouri” has been formed to lead a campaign for new transportation funding. They anticipate holding at least a couple of public forums prior to the November 7 election. Their impact on the gubernatorial election, if any, is hard to predict.
In short, things are about to get pretty interesting, transportation–wise.
The complete 226–page Long–Range Transportation Plan draft is available on MoDOT’s website. Go to www.modot.state.mo.us, and select “Long–Range Transportation Plan” under “Other Information” near the end of the site map. Comments will be accepted through mid–November.